Molecular Characterization of Visual Pigments in Aquatic Mammals

对视觉的科学探索，特别是色觉的科学探索，最早可以追溯到18世纪，当时道尔顿和杨等科学家试图解释色觉和色盲。颜色视觉使动物能够根据颜色信息而不是光度来区分。色觉帮助动物识别其环境中的重要物体水生哺乳动物的色觉研究为研究哺乳动物的视觉系统对水生视觉环境的独特性质的适应提供了独特的机会。我们最近已经证明，宽吻海豚(Tursioptruncatus)缺乏大多数陆地哺乳动物典型的基于视锥的双色视觉。这是一个令人兴奋的发现，也是对两个不同的哺乳动物目和一个亚目(鲸鱼、海豹和海牛)独立适应水环境中生活的水生哺乳动物视觉色素的全面分子研究的开始。这项研究项目将确定是否所有水生哺乳动物：鲸目动物、海豚和海豚的视觉系统与海豚相似，并且只表达两种光谱不同的视觉色素：一种视紫红质和一种视锥色素，因此缺乏典型的哺乳动物双色视觉。这项对水生哺乳动物颜色视觉的比较研究将检验这些具有不同陆地祖先的哺乳动物的不同目和亚目从陆地迁移到水环境中所发生的适应过程。这项研究项目将使我的实验室继续成功地培训女性和少数民族理科学生。在我的实验室工作过的十名少数民族和女性本科生中，有两人在攻读医学博士学位，五人在读研究生，两人在医学院。

The scientific exploration of vision and particularly color vision has its historical roots as far back as the eighteenth century, when scientists such as Dalton and Young attempted to explain color vision and color blindness. Color vision allows an animal to make distinctions based on chromatic information rather than luminosity. Color vision helps an animal identify important objects in their environment The study color vision in aquatic mammals provides an unique opportunity to examine the adaptation of the mammalian visual system to the unique properties of an aquatic visual envirom-nent. We have recently demonstrated that the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) lacks the common cone-based dichromatic form of color vision typical of most terrestrial mammals. This is an exciting finding, and it is the beginning of a comprehensive molecular study of the visual pigments of aquatic mammals for two different mammalian orders and one suborder (whales, seals and manatees) have independently adapted to life in an aquatic environment. This research project will determine if all aquatic mammals: Cetacea, Pinnipedia and Sirenia have a visual system similar to that of the dolphin and express only two spectrally distinct classes of visual pigments: one rhodopsin and one cone pigment and hence lack typical mammalian dichromatic color vision. This comparative study of color vision in aquatic mammals will examine the adaptive processes that occurred as these distinct orders and suborder of mammals with different terrestrial ancestors moved from a land to an aquatic environment.This research project will allow my laboratory to continue to successfully train both women and minority science students. Of the ten minority and women undergraduates who have worked in my laboratory, two are enrolled in MD/Ph.D. programs, five are currently in graduate school and two are in medical school.